7-7-7

[clarentine]

A meme is making its way through the blogosphere, and for once I feel like playing.

The rules:

1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.

(My current ms is all of three paragraphs long, so I'm falling back on the one preceding it, which I wrapped up a month or so ago - a book in search of a title, currently called Switchback.)

uprooting humans.
Most humans, anyway. Jody stroked the rock's flank, encouraging it to shift ever so slightly away from the pocket the tree's root had dug along its side. Lesser bits of earth, obedient to his touch, compressed themselves together. When he felt the root's anchoring had loosened enough, he wrapped his hand around the trunk again and pulled--
--and the tree popped out of the earth as if just planted, the lack of resistance dropping him onto his back with the tree still clenched in his hand.

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Cool! I didn't know Jody had such interesting powers, which is not much of a surprise since I know so little about Jody. :P

[clarentine]

I knew very little about Jody, either, until I started writing about him and his brother last year for novel_in_90. >:-) I've been pondering lately a return to that sort of accountability, if not quite in that community. I don't really have the time for the community management required. I could use the structure, however.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

You and me both. I seriously enjoy community and need the interaction, but as I said before, I can't stick to Ni90's "terms." The level of activity and participation (encouragement, included) has sadly fallen by the wayside since the heyday of that comm.

Would you be interested in pondering along with me how to get a good group going?

[clarentine]

To get a good group going is not hard. Keeping it going is another thing entirely, as we've seen. I think the problem is in part the size of the group - larger means the members lose touch with each other and aren't always engaged enough with one another to want to offer carrots or sticks. Smaller groups seem to have a stronger sense of community to carry them through the times where everyone's really busy; people still make time to encourage each other.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I agree on both counts.

Finding interested people is usually easy enough; getting them to stay interested is much harder. Life always takes it toll and no matter intentions, some end up falling by the wayside.

Group size definitely matters. You need enough to keep it lively and so that no one person feels they are carrying the whole load (but even in a large group, you can still feel this way if the commitment level varies greatly enough), but small enough that a sense of community is developed for all members.